Defiance or not?

I don't think we have a Defiance thread yet but no doubt everyone will point out that one appeared months ago etc etc...

I think this looks quite promising, sort of a Borderlands 2 vibe MMO tied into a TV series. Is anyone else looking forward to it and have you got your pre-orders in? I fancy the red corvette particularly if the vehicle combat is any good.

I just know that if I don't bother to play it there will be some amazing ideas and implementation of cross-media gameplay and storytelling. If I were to play none of that would exist.

Either way, I'm not about to drop $60 on an MMO FPS. MMOs are hard enough to get right to begin with and it being a sci-fi FPS pretty much means that there will be a short, limited lifetime for the game. On top of that there's the real question of what happens to the game if the show only gets a .5 share and SyFy drops it two episodes in. Nope, been burned enough by that channel. I'd rather take $60 cash out back and burn it than risk it on a game whose core premise is at that channel's mercy.

I'd been pretty skeptical about this game so I hadn't looked into it too much. But watching some gameplay videos from beta it actually looks like it could be pretty cool. Sort of a cross between Rift, SWTOR, and Borderlands. I hadn't realized that the combat is real shooter gameplay. Think I'll apply for the final beta to try and get a taste of what it's really like.

krimhorn wrote:

it being a sci-fi FPS pretty much means that there will be a short, limited lifetime for the game.

Can you elaborate on that? Because I'm failing to see how sci-fi FPS has anything to do with a short, limited lifetime.

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On top of that there's the real question of what happens to the game if the show only gets a .5 share and SyFy drops it two episodes in. Nope, been burned enough by that channel. I'd rather take $60 cash out back and burn it than risk it on a game whose core premise is at that channel's mercy.

That is a good question, but I get the feeling that the TV-game interaction is more enhancement than requirement. This game is being developed by Trion and they already run one MMO that seemed to see some success, so it's at least plausible they could keep this going even if the TV show gets canceled.

Either way, the cost is just like buying any other game since there's no monthly subscription.

Its got my attention, just skeptical cause its Trion. I like the concept and the free stuff they are offering.

Honestly, because it's Trion, it's worth a looksie. Rift, in my opinion, set the bar pretty damn high for WoW-clones. It did a lot of things far better than WoW ever did, and it just felt good. That said, in terms of MMOs, it was a me-too, and in this age I just couldn't see PAYING for another MMO given the amount of free ones that are up to par in terms of quality out there.

Defiance isn't going to be F2P, so I'm definitely not buying in. But Trion definitely knows what they're doing.

If I get into the final BETA (since I forgot about the earlier ones), I'll base my decision off of that. A full price game with an almost-necessary cash shop is a tough sell after playing Guild Wars 2.

From the Defiance Website, can't hit from work, I was pretty sure both options for buy in right now were no subscription required. One option was base level buy in with some cool items, while the other was "I want all the cool toys" and will pay extra 50 bucks for it.

The terms are getting a little confused, but Defiance is what some people call "buy to play." Basically it's just like any traditional retail game, you have to buy the initial product but you can play for free after that. That's to distinguish from true F2P games where you can download and play totally for free. What we don't really know yet (or at least I haven't seen) is how odious the microtransactions are going to be.

Personally I think buy-to-play is probably a pretty good model for MMOs, but it's definitely going to cut down on the potential audience somewhat.

The terms are getting a little confused, but Defiance is what some people call "buy to play." Basically it's just like any traditional retail game, you have to buy the initial product but you can play for free after that. That's to distinguish from true F2P games where you can download and play totally for free. What we don't really know yet (or at least I haven't seen) is how odious the microtransactions are going to be.

Personally I think buy-to-play is probably a pretty good model for MMOs, but it's definitely going to cut down on the potential audience somewhat.

I don't think the terms are confusing at all, looks like the same terms that Guild Wars uses to me.

Guild Wars used this model successfully for years and it didn't cut down on the playerbase, so the model for this game isn't anything new and it has been proven to work.

It does remain to be seen what role a item store will play, but pretty much every MMO has a item shop these day even WOW, so I don't think it will be a big deal.

I doubt they would make the same mistake as Guild Wars 2, by making it difficult to earn money that you pretty much have to buy gold from the item shop. Especially since they are already announced DLC content and selling a season pass.

I don't think the terms are confusing on their own, I just think they aren't always used consistently so that when someone says "F2P" you aren't totally sure which they are referring to.

Nulls wrote:

Guild Wars used this model successfully for years and it didn't cut down on the playerbase, so the model for this game isn't anything new and it has been proven to work.

It's sort of obviously true that putting an up-front cost barrier is going to reduce the number of people who try your game. That doesn't mean you can't be successful doing that (obviously), or that it's even necessarily a bad thing. But one of the advantages of F2P is lowering that barrier and getting more people into your game (where you then hope they provide some value, either buying stuff or filling out the player base to make the game more fun for people who are paying).

From what I heard about the microtransactions they are going to have consumables like xp boosters in there. I'm a little wary of that stuff, but it's hard to judge until the game and store are actually out.

I was really hoping that this game would be more than it is. It looked like a really cool tie-in between the TV series, and I seem to remember them saying that online gameplay would affect what happened in the storylines.

In the posted videos, I already know that I can't play it, because its a first-person shooter. I was hoping that it would be more than that.

I hope to hear your reviews once it goes live, and to see if it does affect the TV storyline.

Actually, you can hear reviews as early as tomorrow. It's the last beta weekend, I just got my invite, and it says the NDA lifts tomorrow.

Personally, I'm not so much interested in the game as much just wanting to see if they were able to pull off making it interesting. The TV show actually looks like it could be better than I was expecting, which sort of makes me sad, because I hate them for sucking money out of other shows for it (even though they claim they didn't). I still don't think they're going to be able to integrate the show and game to a point that they have anything but minor, side-quest-y influences. Watching a game trailer and listening to a cutscene in it, I'd even venture that those cutscenes are where most of the "influence" happens, and not the core gameplay. Guess we'll see, though.

I'll be playing this weekend. The show looks interesting and I was happy with what I played of Rift so I'm not nervous about Trion making this since they've got experience now and already delivered a very solid product. I'm mostly excited about the fact that it's a shooter RPG.

Backstory and characters are actually pretty interesting so far. In most mmos the story just gets in the way, but its story definitely has potential.

The graphics are nice enough, nothing special. The animation seems a bit lacking, but considering they have to cram all this in on consoles, its ok.

The questing system overall is good, with plenty of events you just wander into ala GW2. Unfortunately, there are still lots of go pick up a quest and return it to quest-giver quests. They have giant flying battleships, but they cant use radios evidently.

Inventory system is consolish, but not horrible.

Character progression is pretty interesting because each new level and part of the skill tree you unlock give such small bonuses. A level 30 character isn't much more powerful than a starting character. This should make it easier to level with pals, none of this "those quests are too hard/easy for my character" stuff.

And there are no classes, just a big skill tree. You start off in one of 4 places for your action skill and go from there. You could eventually unlock everything.

Personally I find the music uninspired. Been playing Warframe lately, so maybe that's coloring my perception.

And then there's the shooting. For whatever reason, the shooting just feels a little off and clunky. I wish I could explain better. It's certainly not bad, but having just started playing Warframe a few days before, I gotta say Warframe really nails the third-person shooting much better.

All this said, I'm enjoying the game, and looking forward to more time with it during beta weekend. Feel free to bug me in game, I should be on a bunch tomorrow night, game name is Inez.

The shooting is decent but not stellar. Way more action oriented than typical MMO combat. The MMO nature does show through in places though. For example the enemies aren't always fully animated in their transitions. I was fighting in a major arkfall (this game's version of Rifts/public quests), and when we got to the end boss it would sometimes flip around instantly as aggro changed. The issue there is that enemies have weak spots that you are trying to shoot, so if it moves without any animation it makes it kind of hard to follow.

The arkfall was fun, though it was mostly a zerg with no coordination.

I'll disagree with Misinformed and say that the entire inventory/menu system is horrendous from a kb/m perspective. It is clearly designed to be used by a controller and simple tasks like equipping an item or comparing your inventory against the store's involve multiple button presses and screens. Over the many hours of playing an MMO I expect this would get incredibly frustrating. That alone may keep me from buying this game.

Overall I did have fun with my time so far, but it hasn't totally grabbed me and the UI issue is a big turnoff. I'll give it some more time this weekend though.

Watched the hour long video on youtube and a few others..Just a couple questions from an interested party.I'm sorry if these are very elementary, I just want to be clarified on some things.

When a player is downed, he is able to be revived by another player or self-revive. The second time in a short time frame he is unable to self-revive, but can he be revived by another person or is he instantly dead? A dev also said that the penalty for a death is a currency deduction. How harsh a penalty is it?

How useful is the actual currency of the world? A lot of games employ a currency then a certain token type of cash for specific area, which is then used as currency but much harder to come by.. which I understand the need for but always thought of as lame. Just wondering how that seems to work in the beta.

Is there an Auction House?Is there a crafting system?Is there a bank?

How does ammunition work? Again, a dev said in one of the videos that they suggest not running around with 2 of the same types of weapons equipped as you'll run out of ammo quickly.. but he was never clear on how you acquire more. Is it just like any other game where you can run around and pick it up? I'm also going to guess that there's a vendor that sells it?

Sorry if these are all silly MMO Noob questions, but I'm interested in this but don't have anyone to play with.. If an Ars started a clan, I'd like to be there!Thanks

Agreed, in general. I played a few hours last night. I was actually pretty impressed with how the cutscenes were shot and the fact that they integrated characters from the show in them right away. Running on high on a 6970, everything was butter. I originally thought the graphics were going to surprisingly blow me away, but once you hit the open world, the quality drops off a bit. Still not bad, but not like the Bulletstorm level of visuals the opening had me thinking was coming.

Voice acting is top notch, which obviously makes sense, being tied into a TV show.

There are tons of achievements, and collections of them bring small, permanent stat perks.

Using various weapon and vehicle types levels your skill with them over time, which is pretty cool to see in an MMO (the last of which I really played was Rift).

It appears that the show tie-in was actually done via a separate "episode quest" line that seems to run independently of the main quest. The first one had me fighting alongside the 2 main characters. It's a pretty clever idea. You can run around the main game, doing your thing, and each week you'll have new, presumably dynamic side-quests. It's an interesting way to counteract grinding MMO burnout, knowing there will be new things to do every week.

I really can't figure out how guns and damage work. There seems to be location specific damage, or at least the head, where I almost always score a critical. But some guns that seem like they should tear enemies up take longer to drop them than other guns that should take a bit to wear them down. And when I use my damage amp skill, even though it sounds cool and lights them up in a seeming conflagration of burning destruction, actually takes *longer* to kill enemies than when I don't use it.

The guns are varied and fun, though it's hard to get a real feel for their true usefulness and progression, given that they heap a ton of money on you for the beta. I ended up with a purple shield, fire damage submachine gun, and an electric auto-shotty with elemental melee right out of the tutorial. Heh.

I've only driven quads, so far, but based on that, vehicle handling is teeerrrrible. Physics are all kinds of wonky, they handle like you're driving a boulder, and you'll either get hung up on or sent careening into disaster by cracks and protrusions that would have a hard time tripping you on foot. Though it does allow you to use something like a brick to jump over a concrete barrier, if done right. And you can't roll your vehicle, no matter what you run into or off of. You just sort of go all floaty as it auto-levels your wheels. I figure that's likely the reason for the physics weirdness. Altogether, it makes all of the time trial driving challenges you find a little laughable.

And there's no falling damage at all. Done with that mission that took you to the roof of a tower? Don't want to slog the trek back down? Just jump off.

And good thing, too. I had a quest that took me to a few towers, each with a cutscene, and each that takes place outside of the base of the tower, but which would drop me from the height of the tower when the cutscene was over. I ran into similar stuff a number of times, where entire buildings would disappear, and me with them, if I was inside. Had other instances where everything in the area disappeared except for me and the ground. It appears to be an issue with the camera clipping inside objects, since moving the camera brings them back. It reallys sucks when you're driving, though. Heh.

And, yeah, the shooting itself feels a little off. I think part of it seems to be because they artificially control the enemy difficulty. You can stagger them with melee hits or just general bullet and effect impact, but as they're flailing around on fire, staggering back from a stream of bullets, they'll suddenly go full ninja and juke out of the way or do an evasive roll. I do like they the make melee (using your weapon) useful, though, with melee enemies who will sometimes close the gap before you can drop them.

Enemies are pretty dumb, though. Those really powerful, tall grenade launcher guys? Just stand on the other side of a rock and shoot them in the head while they repeatedly fire at the rock.

As a whole, the game is better than what I was expecting in general, though could use some improvement, and I think they made a very big mistake using the pay up front model. With a game and show effectively working as advertisement for each other, you'd think they'd want a model that got the word out further and faster like a free to play that lets the players get their feet wet, get some equipment and levels under their belt, and give them the option to buy access to the rest of the game, so they can keep their stuff and continue participating in the the episodic quest they've taken part in. Even worse is that they already have 5 or 6 DLCs planned and want you to pay even more for them, something that may have worked as "expansions" in the F2P model.

When a player is downed, he is able to be revived by another player or self-revive. The second time in a short time frame he is unable to self-revive, but can he be revived by another person or is he instantly dead?

Yup. You can be revived. Something that sucks when you're playing solo. Heh. And there are skills that will recharge your self-revive quicker.

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A dev also said that the penalty for a death is a currency deduction. How harsh a penalty is it?

I died a number of times, but never really noticed how much I lost. Seemed to be a few hundred, and it wasn't from the main currency. I don't think. There are like 4 types, with the particular one that was reduced coming from enemy drops.

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How useful is the actual currency of the world? A lot of games employ a currency then a certain token type of cash for specific area, which is then used as currency but much harder to come by.. which I understand the need for but always thought of as lame. Just wondering how that seems to work in the beta.

As I said in my previous post, it's hard to tell, because they give you a boatload of the main currency.

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Is there an Auction House?Is there a crafting system?Is there a bank?

Not sure about the first and third question, but as for the second, there is a weapon modding system. I haven't used it yet, but I've acquired some mods and there's a menu that seems to imply you can do it on the fly. That's something I forgot to mention. Nothing seems to be tied to a geographical location, so far. It appears you can do everything in the field, right down to summoning vehicles out of thin air.

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How does ammunition work? Again, a dev said in one of the videos that they suggest not running around with 2 of the same types of weapons equipped as you'll run out of ammo quickly.. but he was never clear on how you acquire more. Is it just like any other game where you can run around and pick it up? I'm also going to guess that there's a vendor that sells it?

I use 2 full-auto weapons and haven't come close to running out of ammo. Enemies drop small amounts and there are ammo crates *all over the place*. Each crate fills all your weapons and seems to have an endless supply. Which brings up something else I like. Grenades "recharge". You don't run out of them. Instead you equip the *type* of grenade that automatically regenerates.

If anyone is looking for Arsians, my master name is Logik2000 and my char is Van Dek.

How useful is the actual currency of the world? A lot of games employ a currency then a certain token type of cash for specific area, which is then used as currency but much harder to come by.. which I understand the need for but always thought of as lame. Just wondering how that seems to work in the beta.

I'm still pretty early but it looks like there are at least two types of currency. One is for buying stuff for merchants, and the other is useful for buying essentially random item packs as an alternative to spending real money on them.

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How does ammunition work? Again, a dev said in one of the videos that they suggest not running around with 2 of the same types of weapons equipped as you'll run out of ammo quickly.. but he was never clear on how you acquire more. Is it just like any other game where you can run around and pick it up? I'm also going to guess that there's a vendor that sells it?

So far ammo hasn't been a big issue. Enemies do drop it, and you can also fill up at ammo boxes that are scattered quite liberally around the world (there seems to be one by every spawn point).

Edit: For anyone else playing the beta, am I missing something or is there no server select? Are they intending to have just one world server in the live game?

- It seems like you can only have one side mission at a time- Your character is totally mute. Which is mostly odd in that the other characters are voiced and talking directly to you, but you don't respond at all (not even animated gestures). That has advantages in games where you're making dialog choices, but this is in predetermined cutscenes.- I think there is some pretty transparent instancing happening, either that or they have tuned the respawn rates pretty well to make it seem like when you clear an area it is cleared. There also seem to be some quests that are area based, that is there will be several objective which need to be met and anyone in the area can do them.

Having not played anything from Trion, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm very wary of buying it though, given SyFy's track record of a) keeping quality sci-fi on the air, or b) producing huge amounts of utter drek that shouldn't have made it to a pilot.

Fell through a building thanks to the decoy teleport effect. Anyway to suicide?

Having not played anything from Trion, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm very wary of buying it though, given SyFy's track record of a) keeping quality sci-fi on the air, or b) producing huge amounts of utter drek that shouldn't have made it to a pilot.

Fell through a building thanks to the decoy teleport effect. Anyway to suicide?

Having not played anything from Trion, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm very wary of buying it though, given SyFy's track record of a) keeping quality sci-fi on the air, or b) producing huge amounts of utter drek that shouldn't have made it to a pilot.

Fell through a building thanks to the decoy teleport effect. Anyway to suicide?

Serenity Power plant?

You can fast travel from your map back to the crash site.

KTAM radio station mission. And oh, that was not pointed out in any menus or tutuorial ... kinda of important feature to mention. Thanks.

Having not played anything from Trion, I was pleasantly surprised. I'm very wary of buying it though, given SyFy's track record of a) keeping quality sci-fi on the air, or b) producing huge amounts of utter drek that shouldn't have made it to a pilot.

Fell through a building thanks to the decoy teleport effect. Anyway to suicide?

Serenity Power plant?

You can fast travel from your map back to the crash site.

KTAM radio station mission. And oh, that was not pointed out in any menus or tutuorial ... kinda of important feature to mention. Thanks.

I probably got stuck in the same spot and ended up suiciding with a well/poorly aimed grenade. Tried clicking on various markers on the maps for some sort of fast travel and couldn't quite figure anything out.

Personally I found the game not to my taste and it might have been due to the game being in third person way the hell off to the side of the screen view which I have found always impacts my ability to aim (I suck at Gears of War, for instance). Is there any way to force first person view? Tried digging through all the options and couldn't find anything about camera distance.

360 version is a mess compared to the PC, at least for this beta. I've been reading on the official forums that the 360 version is behind the PC and PS3 for this beta, but the issues are "being worked on". The only weapon I was comfortable using a controller with was the shotgun. Aiming is just too slow with the sticks. And yes, I do play other FPS titles on the 360 so I'm no PC snob. Most of my gaming is on the 360 since my daughter usually has the PC tied up with her Sims 3 (and now SimCity) obsession.

There seems to be many people on the forums claiming this last beta client (for all platforms) is not the "release client" in any way, shape or form. If that's the case, that's quite silly. I would think you'd want the closest to final client out there for the final beta to stress test.

I'd wary of playing too much in case I decide to pick this up. I don't want to ruin anything for myself or burn myself out on it. It certainly seems like a game I'd enjoy off and on, but I worry about how necessary the DLC (5 $10 DLC packs for "Season One") will become to enjoyment. I don't think this game comes close to subscription-level quality, and GW2/The Secret World certainly puts it to shame in B2P quality as well.

Haven't seen much discussion of the microtransactions so thought I'd give my thoughts on those. There are several types of things you can buy:

Cosmetic stuff like outfits and vehicles. In general I have no problem with microtransactions for cosmetics. It's possible some of this has stat boosts, I didn't really look closely.

Extra inventory. This one is a bit iffy to me only because the starting inventory of 15 seems really restrictive. Part of it may be because I hit a bug which didn't allow me to get rid of some equipment, but I was running into the limit pretty quickly. I don't know if there's another way to get more inventory, but if not I can't see most people playing for any significant amount of time without buying more slots. But in general this kind of convenience purchase doesn't bother me.

Temporary boosters. You can get XP, money, or weapon skill boosts that last for a few days. I didn't play enough to be able to tell whether this is something that becomes necessary if you want to avoid horrible grinds, or if it's just a way to let you skip some side content. It could be really gross or not a big deal.

Random item packs. This to me is really gross. You can pay ~$1-4 to get a pack of 2-4 random items. It's basically gambling and it feels pretty ugly. On the bright side this is the only one (AFAICT) that gives you an option to buy with in-game currency instead of real money.

Hork wrote:

There seems to be many people on the forums claiming this last beta client (for all platforms) is not the "release client" in any way, shape or form. If that's the case, that's quite silly. I would think you'd want the closest to final client out there for the final beta to stress test.

Every MMO beta I've played has had a vocal group of people claiming that there's a secret in-house version that fixes all the problems. That said, IIRC, the beta signup page explicitly stated that the beta is "not representative of the final game" which probably helps feed those comments. I have no idea what Trion was intending to convey with that.

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I'd wary of playing too much in case I decide to pick this up. I don't want to ruin anything for myself or burn myself out on it. It certainly seems like a game I'd enjoy off and on, but I worry about how necessary the DLC (5 $10 DLC packs for "Season One") will become to enjoyment.

That's sort of where I am too. I enjoyed my time with it this weekend and it sort of left me wanting to play more, but I'm trying to avoid playing more of the beta. I still haven't decided whether I'm going to buy it though, the UI in particular is really giving me pause.

Yah the account wide purchases are the way to go. Especially if that is the rule and not the exception.

My only concern, as mentioned, is if the DLC's will be required. I am really on the fence on this one, gameplay looks a lot like Fallen Earth/Tabula Rasa ish. Both of which I enjoyed, but both had their faults.

Crafting system is must and inventory by micro transaction increase is BS if that is the case.

I'm liking the gunplay. Single shots and burst auto are quite accurate, and controllable. I hate when games stick a RNG in the barrel of a weapon, because then your effectiveness is a roll of the dice, not player skill. I'm fairly good at removing heads from moving targets at range, and I like that this game lets me do it with great consistency.

Area-wide mission mechanics are nice, and as mentioned whatever instancing is happening is relatively transparent, and fast.

World BGM is extremely repetitive, here's hoping the full release has more variety. The main menu music is quite misleading, I was hoping the whole score would be of similar style, opposed to the looping ambient combat track I get most of the time. If it was semi-procedural or context-switching music, like Borderlands uses, that'd be really nice. Actually, the whole experience is very much making me think of a MMO version of Borderlands.

I am really on the fence on this one, gameplay looks a lot like Fallen Earth/Tabula Rasa ish. Both of which I enjoyed, but both had their faults.

It's been a long time since I played Tabula Rasa so I could be misremembering, but I think the gameplay in Defiance is definitely better. IIRC the shooting in Tabula Rasa wasn't really shooter mechanics, and I think the arkfalls are a better system for public style quests than what TR had (at least if they play out like Rifts did, those were a lot of fun).